“They were talking about individual scores and, who knows, maybe even worrying about their places in the team.

“Some of them had a beer, but Malan stuck to the mineral water.”

The players then watched England get off to a superb start against in the T20 international as Jason Roy with 44 and irrepressible Jos Buttler with 61 made the early running.

Midway through the England innings Ed Griffiths, a behind the scenes figure at Middlesex who has a history of sports administration behind him, appeared at the pub.

Griffiths is an intriguing figure in sport. He was the chief executive of South African Rugby Union when Francois Pienaar’s men won the Rainbow Nation’s first World Cup in 1995. He has also worked with Saracens in the UK.

The cricket writer Will Macpherson described Griffiths as: “Austere, uncompromising and shy of speaking on the record, he has quickly become the players’ counsel; a familiar sight during the Champion County match was of him ambling laps of the boundary with individual players, chewing the fat and clutching his notebook.”

Griffiths arrived at the Stars to tell the players that “today was bad day for Middlesex cricket and German football”.